


Lock and Key

by themantlingdark



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 20:26:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16899333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themantlingdark/pseuds/themantlingdark
Summary: Thor and Loki meet in dreams long before they meet in waking life.





	Lock and Key

Gusts of wind were throwing up the dead leaves that littered the grass from last autumn. They were wet with rain and melted snow, and they streaked Thor’s cheeks with stinging damp when they grazed him as they blew past. The shriveled berries that were still clinging to the trees three days ago had all been ripped away by the wind last night, sometimes along with entire branches. Oaks had toppled and utility poles had fallen too, taking down power lines and smashing transformers as they fell.

The air was thick with scents. The wet green of broken branches. The tangy mineral odors of overturned earth. The spicy sweetness of snapped roots. Mingled among those, Thor could smell the mixture of cat, laundry detergent, and concrete that meant a basement. When he looked at the nearest house he could see a tree lying down beside it. The only damage it appeared to have done was to pop the glass block basement windows out of place, leaving a rectangular black opening at the bottom of the house.

Thor’s crew had been working for ten hours already, and the power outages in his region were still widespread. The darkness to the west threatened to undo what work had been begun. Spring seemed intent on making up for the mild autumn and winter that had preceded it.

After Thor got home, Sif called to see if he wanted to go bowling and have a pizza delivered to the alley. He bowed out for the first time in his life. It wasn’t yet eight o’clock and he was already on his back in bed, feeling too leaden to walk, let alone lift a heavy ball. Even thoughts and eyelids were too much to hold aloft.

Thor dreamt he was back at the house he’d seen earlier that day, standing beside the fallen tree and looking in through the broken basement window. He expected to see the broken glass blocks shattered on the cement below and was confused to find, instead, his childhood room.

The curtains and slanting sunlight were gone now, and there were bunk beds instead of a single twin. Thor could see himself lying on the upper bunk. Not himself as he was today, but himself as he’d been at age nine, with the lollipop proportions of youth and the still-red scars of skinned elbows and knees. Thor’s friend was on the lower bunk, lying naked on his back with with his feet up. He was rhythmically kicking the bed above him, making the small body that was lying on it jump like a pulse.

“When can I come up there?” the man asked, abandoning his kicks and rolling away on his side.

“I don’t want to trade,” Thor answered, sounding strangely firm with his high boy’s voice.

“Neither do I,” the man sighed.

Thor stared at the back of the man’s head. At the jumble of curls on the pillow that beckoned fingers. He wished the head would turn. He wanted to see the round eyes and red lips. But it didn’t move. He followed the spine down and saw the ribs rising and falling swiftly, as though the man had been running. When Thor looked up at the top bunk again, his younger self had flipped onto his stomach and was driving his hips into the mattress at a frantic pace. Below him, the man rolled onto his back and stared at the bunk that was bouncing over his head. Thor could see tears leaking out the corner of the man’s right eye and trickling into the fine hair at his temple. His soft face hardened and then grimaced, showing sharp teeth. When he raised his left arm, there was a dagger held in his hand. He screamed as he drove it up into the bed above him, again and again. For a time only cotton floated out of the gash, slowly descending like huge clumps of snow. Then there was a low cry and the mattress stopped bouncing. Blood spilled down in an unbroken stream, spreading out over the man’s skin, painting him red from his ribs to his thighs.

Thor jolted awake and found his heart beating so fast it was painful. The sensation was at odds with his surroundings and with his otherwise motionless state. It made his body feel ill-fitting. His thoughts sat ill as well. Where he expected to feel wronged, he felt guilty, as though he’d driven the knife into the boy--or had driven the man to do it.

He wondered what qualified as a recurring dream. Whether some details were allowed to change if others remained the same, or if everything had to be identical. Whether the sense of familiarity was enough.

The dream he’d just had felt like a variation on a series of dreams he’d had when he was little, between the ages of five and ten or so. In the original versions, his home had been rendered so precisely by his mind that the dreams had felt real in a way that thrilled him. From what he remembered of them, he would go up to his bedroom late in the afternoon. The light would be coming in sideways through the curtains so that everything glowed a pale gold. It was his favorite time of day. The angle of the sun meant school was out and his life was his own again. The breeze that blew in through the open window was warm enough to feel welcome even to bare skin, which was never in short supply. Lying on Thor’s bed would be a man the color of marble, naked with the blankets kicked down to his feet, sleepy-eyed and smiling, as though he’d been waiting there all day. Thor would smile in greeting, throw his book bag and clothes on the floor, and then hurry over to his friend. He’d stare at the smooth limbs, subtly muscled, even more inviting than rumpled sheets. At the sort of body he hoped to have one day. Tall and firm. Unblemished and strong. Broad-shouldered and handsome, with a strong jaw that looked striking above a smooth neck. And Thor would run his hands over everything he wanted. The long shins with their dusting of hair. The ripples of the ribs, with the skin stretched tight and shiny across them. The muscles in the upper arms, always warm against his fingers and wider than the bone hidden beneath them. If the man’s cock was lying off to one side, Thor would gently center it. He was fond of symmetry, and any lack of it was especially noticeable between his friend’s long, mirrored legs. Throughout these ministrations, the man’s gaze would follow Thor’s face. Every time Thor looked up, the bright green eyes would be waiting for his own beneath their serenely curved brows.

The man’s face had been a marriage of hard and soft: angles at the nose, jaw, and hairline; curves at the eyes, cheeks, and mouth. And the whole of it had been framed by inky curls that coiled up like a crown of roses. Thor had wanted the face and hair, too, but not for his own head. For himself somehow, but without taking them from his friend.

When Thor had finished petting his hello onto the lovely body, he would sit at the edge of the bed and lean over to stroke the man’s cheek before bending to kiss him once on the mouth. Then the man would nod and Thor would reach down and draw circles on his friend’s stomach with his fingertip, moving slowly in expanding and contracting orbits. Sometimes Thor would dip a finger into the man’s navel, eliciting a whimper, and he would look up at the handsome face and find it pleading, but for what, exactly, Thor was never sure.

The last of those dreams had come twenty years ago. Thor had all but forgotten them, though he had lived for them when he was young. Sometimes he had wrapped his arms around his pillow and wept against the white cotton, simultaneously comforted, imagining it was the pale man’s breast, and heartbroken, knowing that it wasn’t.

Thor’s friend had changed in the interim without actually aging. Still a tall, slim beauty of thirty summers, but his face had pores and stubble now. His skin had grown rosy at the cheeks and was dotted here and there with tawny freckles. There was hair between his legs and there were deep colors in the larger shapes nestled there. No longer bloodless marble with the modest cock and balls that Thor had known in boyhood from his own body and from the figures in art history books. Now flesh and blood, capable of sorrow and rage.

Thor went to the kitchen and plunged his face into a bowl of ice water to force his pulse to slow down. He was sick of feeling frantic, like his heart knew something he didn’t.

He had slept little since college. Eight hours had never left him feeling any more rested than six, so he’d skipped the extra two and used them for exercise. It only now occurred to him that, since adopting the six hour policy, he’d ceased to remember his dreams. When he checked his phone he found it was after eight in the morning. He’d slept twelve hours. He thought he should feel more rested.

Line after line of storms passed through, leaving more downed lines and strained grids in their wake. Much of what wasn’t broken outright was overtaxed by trying to pick up the slack. Thor’s bank account filled up with overtime pay that he was too tired to spend.

The second new dream Thor could recall with any clarity took place at his house, which seemed to have been transplanted to a yard that was not his own small suburban plot. In the dream he had acres of grass and pastures surrounded by woods, all just visible by the light of a full moon. Behind his house stood a huge red barn. Thor could see it through the window over the kitchen counter where he stood slicing apples. He could hear ringing, like a hammer against a board, coming from the backyard, and went outside to find its source.

Even in the dark he could see the barn door shuddering from the blows of the hooves within. There were snorts, clopping footsteps, whinnies, and more pounding. Fearing a kick to the head, Thor listened for a pattern and timed his entrance, sliding the door aside and slipping in while the horse’s feet were pacing at the far side of the barn.

He could feel dust, straw, and smooth cement beneath his bare feet. And he could see well enough, despite the lack of any clear light source. There was an orange glow all around the edges of the room, like fire, though there was no hearth. There were no stalls or other divisions in the space, so the horse was free to make a circuit of the building. It had worn a faint path into the concrete floor with its ceaseless pacing and had worn itself out in the process. Sweat had foamed up at its chest, showing white against a glossy black coat. Its ribs flashed as it turned to pass him.

When Thor looked in the horse’s trough, it was dry. He flooded with panic. This was his property. His home. He lived alone. Filling it had been his responsibility. He wrenched the handle to turn on the water and heard panting coming up behind him as the beast jogged over. It leaned down to gulp water straight from the faucet.

The feed pail hanging from the wall had only dust inside. Thor grabbed it and ran to the tack room at the left edge of the barn. He opened bins of curry combs, brushes, towels, and halters before he landed on the one that held food and began filling the pail with fistfuls of greenish pellets. The horse was waiting at the door when Thor turned around and it began to eat as soon as he was in reach, dipping its muzzle into the bucket and walking beside him as he went over to the wall to hang the pail on its hook.

Thor went back to get some of the towels, fearful that all the sweat would give the animal a chill. He dried it off slowly and carefully, wiping its coat with firm pressure. He could feel the moisture bleeding through the towel, still hot from the stallion’s skin, dampening his palms with every pass. When the horse was dry, Thor looked up to the hayloft and was relieved to find straw for bedding and bales of timothy and alfalfa for feed. As soon as the straw was spread on the floor, the horse settled down on its side to sleep. Thor went back up to the loft to grab hay for the feeder. When he moved the bale he found two narrow legs lying on the rough wooden floorboards. He flinched backward in fright. At first, the limbs seemed to have been severed at the knee, but then the quilted blue horse blanket registered in Thor’s mind and the contours of the body that was rolled up within it became clear. Thor threw the hay down to the horse’s manger and turned back to look at the legs. He wondered whether he should call the police. He didn’t know if he’d get into more trouble for touching a dead person or for leaving a live one. He still wasn’t certain which he was looking at.

The edges of the blanket were tucked under the body and he had to tug them free. The man inside was lying face down, naked, and his skin was cold to the touch. When Thor rolled him onto his back he found his friend’s face, with green eyes half closed and lips gone slack and blue. Thor had no name to call. He could only shout “wake up” as he shook the limp shoulders. When that had no effect, he looked for breathing and listened for a pulse. He found nothing in each case. He did thirty chest compressions, tipped the man’s head back, lifted his chin to open the airway, and then looked and listened for breathing.

Nothing.

He pinched the man’s nose shut and forced air into his lungs, watching his chest rise and drop twice.

Still nothing.

He repeated the cycle.

Nothing.

Again.

Nothing.

Thor had been performing CPR for several minutes and was trying to remember where he’d left his phone when the man gasped and coughed, then curled up on his side, panting. Thor stared at the stretching of the bare ribs and belly for a long time, still worried they’d stop moving.

“I’ll go get help,” Thor said, when the breaths had evened out.

“No,” the man begged. “Don’t leave me.”

He reached for Thor with an emaciated arm, catching him by the sleeve and bunching the fabric up in his fist so tightly his knuckles went white.

“Then come with me,” Thor said. “The house is only a hundred yards away.”

The man nodded and Thor hauled him up from the floor.

Thor went down the ladder first, forming a cage with his body that would catch the man if he fell. When they reached the barn floor the man was gasping and swaying on his feet. Thor was frightened he’d stop breathing again, or else fall and crack his head open on the cement, so he scooped the bony body up in his arms, slid the barn door open with his toes, and hurried to the house.

Inside, Thor laid the man on the couch, then pulled the throw off the back cushions and draped it over him.

“Don’t leave me,” the man said again, when Thor stood up and turned.

“I’ll be right there in the kitchen,” Thor soothed, pointing at the spot ten feet away. “You’ll be able to see me the whole time. I’m just going to get you some food.”

The man frowned and his brow folded up, but he nodded. Still, he watched like a hawk.

Thor went through the cupboards and fridge and tried to remember what the BRAT diet comprised. He knew it included bananas, but he could have sworn bread was part of it too. However, there was only one B. He couldn’t recall whether the A stood for and or for applesauce, and T was eluding him entirely. The R was for rice, but that would take half an hour to make, so he grabbed the bananas from the counter top and poured a glass of milk. Milk seemed a better option than filling the man up with a nutritionally empty volume of water.

“Here,” Thor said, crouching and offering the glass, then watching as the man’s pale throat gulped around the drink.

In his fatigue and haste, he tipped the cup back just a hair too far. White spilled out the corners of his mouth, then ran down his neck and caught in the hollows above his collarbones.

When Thor offered the banana, the man couldn’t snap its stem. After watching him twist and bend it uselessly for nearly a minute, Thor gently took it, then flipped it over and showed his friend that it was always easier to open them from the other end. You simply pinched the rough black bit at the tip until it split, then pulled each side apart. The man smiled at this and ate the fruit while Thor stared at the drops of milk that were still quivering on his skin. They had left pale streaks down his neck, not only because the milk was white, but because it had rinsed away some of the grime from the barn.

“I’m just going to the kitchen again,” Thor reassured, as he rose to his feet.

The man nodded and successfully peeled a second banana using Thor’s technique.

Thor got a big mixing bowl from deep in a cupboard and filled it with hot, soapy water, then grabbed a clean dishcloth and dry towel.

The man made no objections when Thor began to wipe him clean. He lifted his chin and turned his head to let Thor reach the streaks of milk on the sides of his neck. Lowered the blanket to let Thor wipe the grit of the barn from his body and limbs. Thor was careful over the belly where there were no bones to offer protection. He brushed the wet cloth across the stomach as if he were washing a bird’s egg, and dabbed it dry with pats of the towel that weighed little more than the cotton itself. The soles of the man’s feet had the most dust on them and required a bit of scrubbing. The man began to giggle and squirm as Thor washed them, so Thor continued a little longer than was strictly necessary, eager to hear more of the rich, clear laughter.

When Thor looked back over his work, the man’s flesh seemed full again, as if the hollows had been mere shadows drawn on by dirt, or perhaps the milk and fruit had somehow filled the body up. The man’s cock was full too, pointing at his navel and bouncing gently with the beats of his heart. It drew Thor’s eyes to the bits of straw that were still stuck in the curls between his legs. Thor cautiously teased them all out, making sure he didn’t tug any hair as he went. When he looked up again, the man was smiling at him with soft, tired eyes. There were yellow stalks of straw sticking out here and there among the rolling black waves that framed his face. Thor pulled them out, one by one, and watched the strands of hair that shifted and uncoiled around the stems.

When Thor sat up, he noticed that the man’s hands had secretly been busy unbuttoning his shirt. They were pale against the skin of Thor’s stomach where they were playing with the scruffy blond hair that dusted his belly. Thor watched as a pale thumb and forefinger reached into the divot of his navel and, with a flick of the wrist, seemed to retrieve a gold skeleton key. Thor laughed and the man grinned back at him, then winked and swallowed the key like a sword. He showed his palms and the inside of his mouth to Thor to prove he wasn’t hiding anything. Thor looked back down at his navel to see whether the man would pull the key from his belly button again, but the man’s fingertip was busy tapping on the button of Thor’s jeans. The rhythm felt familiar. Impatient and urgent, and Thor woke to find it was keeping time with the beeping of his alarm.

Thor ate his breakfast at the back door and stared out at the short grass and old trees, still bare but budding.

He wondered if his mind had caught a ghost in his bedroom all those years ago. If the lonely spirit had led him to this house. If, a century ago, a young man had died alone and forgotten in a barn that stood a hundred yards from here.

Thor stopped at a café on his way to work and asked for three extra large black coffees with three shots of espresso in each of them instead of his usual latte.

After dinner he called his mother. It had been two weeks since they’d spoken, though they’d texted almost every day. Thor wondered if perhaps his dreams were warning him not to let things go too long. He had failed to think of the friend from his dreams for two decades and he was worried that that was the reason the man had been lying dead in the barn.

In his dream that night, Thor was standing at the back door, looking out into his yard. It was properly his yard now. No barn. No acres. Just thick Kentucky Bluegrass not much higher than the ankles, almost in need of mowing, but not quite. The day was clear and bright. Warm, but not hot. The soccer net in the neighbor’s back yard was shifting slightly in the same soft breeze that was coming through the screen to kiss Thor’s face. Pale arms belted Thor’s waist from behind. High hips butted up against him. Through his clothes he could feel a firm cock slotting into the cleft of his ass and resting there, as if to fill the gap. He looked down at the thin limbs that were still wrapped around his middle and reached to stroke the fine skin on the inside of a forearm, following a blue vein that ran down and veered off over the knob of the wrist. When Thor turned his head, he found his friend’s chin sitting on his shoulder. The man’s lips were smiling and red. Redder than usual.

“Lipstick?” Thor asked. “Or lipstain?” he amended, remembering something he’d seen advertised on television.

“Strawberries,” the man answered, and then lightly tugged Thor back toward the kitchen table.

He was wearing Thor’s white cotton pajama bottoms and nothing else. They rode low on his hips and showed off the shallow dimples at the base of his back. The shifting muscles beneath the fabric appeared and vanished again as the pants were pulled back and forth by long legs that were slowly swinging. The man walked, not weakly, but lazily, back to his seat and reached for more fruit. He had a bowl filled to the brim with the small strawberries that always tasted sweetest. Local. Fragile. Red all the way up to their stems.

They sat down and hooked their legs together under the table as they ate. The man smiled and slid his feet up the insides of Thor’s ankles and then higher, following the calves. His skin whispered against the weave of Thor’s jeans until the sound was briefly drowned out by a hum when he bit into the last of the berries. Juice dripped down his bottom lip and over his chin. Thor leaned in and caught the pink drop with his fingertip just before it fell, then watched it stutter along his own skin toward his palm. The man caught Thor by the wrist and raised Thor’s hand to his lips. He licked the juice from the inner edge of Thor’s third finger, slowly tracing its path with the pink tip of his tongue. He turned Thor’s hand over to appraise his work, then put the whole digit in his mouth and sucked it lightly, hollowing his cheeks and smiling with his eyes. His feet were at Thor’s knees now and he hummed again as he knocked Thor’s legs apart before gliding his toes up Thor’s inner thighs.

Thor woke with a rush and felt his hips curling weakly against the mattress beneath him. His hair was plastered to the side of his face. His heart was beating fast again, but this time the rest of his body matched it. His muscles were twitching and trembling with release and fatigue. When he rolled onto his back, he could feel the wet spot on his hip growing cold, no longer masked by the heat of his body and the sweat on the sheets.

He began to suspect he was neglecting himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d given himself an orgasm or settled in to treat himself to a marathon of smut.

He had Thursday off and opted to spend it in bed with his laptop on Pornhub.

Spray-tanned mannequins jack-hammered each other in half a dozen rapidly changing, completely absurd poses while they made equally absurd noises. Thor clicked his way further and further into a niche where, though the production values plummeted, the people often looked softer and less practiced. More present. He found a young couple on a blanket on the floor. The woman looked poured into her skin. Delicious. Unfortunately, she had already acquired the vices of porn-face and porn-moan. Thor muted the video to eliminate half of the problem. The young man who was with her moved like some cross between a tiger and a doe, effortlessly staying close without ever seeming predatory. He had dark, silky hair that was cut in unpredictable, asymmetrical layers which hung down to his jaw in places. His features were frequently sharp, but somehow never harsh. Harmonious and well proportioned. A high forehead. A long, narrow nose. Large bright eyes above round, rosy cheeks. Thin, smiling lips. A jaw and chin that were strong, but not jutting. His body was slim, but smooth. Thor forgot about the girl and wished the cinematographer had done the same. Sometimes he found himself craning his neck and tipping his head, trying to see the man’s face when it had been cut from the frame.

Thor stroked his cock as he watched it a second time. He teased himself with lazy wrings and twists, sometimes just holding the shaft, staring, waiting for a better shot of the man’s face, then speeding up when the view got good. He turned the volume back up at the end to hear the man moan and he came all over his stomach to the sound of it. When he looked down at his body the sight struck him as lovely. His muscles were twitching, defined one second, revealing themselves, and going soft and silky the next. The translucent droplets of semen that were scattered across his skin looked like melted pearls. His cock was still hard, standing up above is belly. He could see it moving with his heartbeat, rising and falling gently between his hips. The last pulse of come had flowed weakly from the tip and was still slowly moving down the head of his cock, glazing it so that it looked almost like an opal. Thor swiped his finger through it and set it on his tongue. Salt, green wood, and powdery flowers. Same as ever. He wondered if the stranger from his dreams would taste like strawberries.   

That night he dreamt he was lying on his back in bed in late afternoon. The sun was coming in sideways through the windows and the air was sweet with perfume that was drifting out of the bathroom. Thor could hear the hiss of the shower running, the squeak of the faucet shutting off, and then the thudding roll of the glass door sliding open. A moment later his friend came around the corner. His hair was still dripping wet and his skin was red from the hot water. He climbed onto the bed and straddled Thor’s chest, then he scooted back, slid his calves under Thor’s arms, and perched his ass on Thor’s chin. Thor stared up at the rosy wall of skin for such a long time his friend finally sat up a bit and twisted to look back at him.

“Do you think I’m dirty?” the man asked.

“No,” Thor said, and guided the man’s hips down again.

Thor pressed his face between the warm curves of two smooth cheeks and stretched his mouth wide so that he could lap at the little ring of rippled skin that was twitching in front of his tongue.

Thor was still hard when he woke up, and was grateful for it, as he’d just changed his sheets after his pornography marathon and wasn’t in the mood to change them again already. He hurried to the shower to jerk off while the images in his head were still fragments of the original dream rather than the framed reproductions manufactured by memory.

During breakfast he did a little research about dreams. The frustratingly noncommittal consensus seemed to be that you were the one best able to interpret your own dreams; that everything within the dream was, ultimately, the dreamer in some way; and that sex with a partner of the same gender often symbolized self-acceptance rather than attraction, except when it did represent attraction.

Thor sighed. In his case, the part of himself he was accepting was his attraction to men. It was so easily done it didn’t leave him feeling particularly accomplished. He supposed that might be because he hadn’t actually acted on it yet.

 

The next time he went out with his friends, he paid more attention to the other men around him, making eye contact and smiling. Exchanging pleasantries. But nothing sparked with anyone he met, and he didn’t want to go through the motions. Nevertheless, it felt good to look, and he knew he hadn’t put any real effort into meeting someone, so he wasn’t discouraged.

###  **Chapter Management**

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###  [**Chapter 2**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8685706/chapters/19911943) **: Key**

###  **Chapter Text**

Three weeks passed without any more dreams of the young man. Thor went out with Fandral and, between them, they danced with everyone on the floor of the club. Thor had an energetic spin with an astoundingly skilled and compatible partner. In their enthusiasm and gratitude for the fun they’d given each other, they finished the dance with a full minute of wild kissing--while they were still on the center of the dance floor--that was met with hoots and applause. And it was perfect just like that: the tension and thrill; the satisfaction and release. Balance restored. The dancers parted ways with hearty pats to each other’s backs and huge grins on their faces.

On the drive home from work the following day Thor decided to celebrate the progress he’d made the night before. He took himself to dinner and then swung by his favorite bakery to pick up a coconut cream pie. He also promised himself another viewing of his favorite porno.

His mom called just as he was pulling into his driveway. He sat in the parked car, chatting and laughing with her for nearly an hour. Filling her in on what had been going on, both in his head and out of it.

The sky was burning orange with sunset when they said their goodnights and I love yous. Thor thumped up the front steps and reached into his right pants pocket, then froze and flooded with adrenaline. He checked his left pocket. His back pockets. The pockets in the sides of his jacket.

No keys.

The car door was locked when he tried the handle. Peering through the window, he saw the missing keys perched atop the plastic clam shell that held the pie, sitting on the passenger eat.

“Fuck.”

He thought about calling the police department, which would be free and simple, but he didn’t like to bother them with harmless bullshit when someone with an actual problem might need help. So, instead, he searched for locksmiths on his phone and dialed the closest one. The employee who answered asked whether Thor’s car had power locks or manual, and where it was parked.

Thor stood at the end of the driveway, waiting, until he saw an unfamiliar car slowly making its way up the street. He waved to save the locksmith the trouble of trying to read more tiny house numbers. When the car turned in, Thor leaned down to the open window to greet the driver.

For once, familiarity rendered everything uncertain. The day spent at work, the trip to the bakery, the drive and the phone calls. Suddenly they all seemed to have been a dream.

Thor stared at the man for a full thirty seconds and the man stared back throughout, equally stunned and uneasy.

When they finally snapped their mouths shut, Thor noticed that his legs were shaking and the driver’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

“Sorry,” the man breathed, then cleared his throat. “This is going to sound like the biggest bullshit prank or con or come-on of all time, but-”

“I’ve been dreaming about you since I was five,” Thor gasped.

The man blinked for several seconds, then narrowed his eyes.

“Were you finishing my sentence?” he asked.

“Not deliberately,” Thor answered. “Why? Did I?”

The man nodded and cautiously smiled.

“There isn’t a barn in your backyard, is there?” the man asked, going slightly green in the face.

“No,” Thor said softly. “And there are no bunk beds in a stranger’s basement.”

The driver gave a shaky exhale, nodded, grabbed his tool kit, and got out of the car.

“I’m Thor,” Thor said, offering his hand.

“Loki,” the man smiled, taking Thor’s hand in a firm grip and shaking it.

Loki fed an inflatable wedge through the tiny gap at the edge of Thor’s car door. When he filled it with air, it pushed the door open as far as the lock would allow. Then a long wire with a hook at the end was fed through the opening and Loki wiggled it until it hit the button that unlocked the door.

Thor offered his praises and thanks as he retrieved his pie and keys. He paid using the card swiper that was attached to Loki’s cell phone while he tried to think of a way to convince the man to linger.

“Can I offer you dessert?” Thor asked, holding up the pie.

“I’ve got twenty-five minutes before I’m off for the night, and I still have to close up shop,” Loki frowned. “But if you’d be willing to wait-”

“Sure,” Thor said.

“In that case, I’ll see you soon,” Loki smiled, and they went their separate ways.

Thor nearly sprinted through the house. He vacuumed the floor and cleaned the bathroom. Cracked the windows to freshen the air. Washed his face and brushed his teeth. Put a fresh t-shirt on under his sweater and fixed his hair. He was setting out plates when the doorbell rang.

Loki was on the porch with a bottle of Lindemans Framboise Lambic in his hand.

“Come in,” Thor grinned, and showed his guest to the kitchen, though he wasn’t sure if it was really necessary to show his guest anything.

While Thor sliced the pie, Loki went to look out the back door. The sky was a deep pink now, tinged with purple, and the birds were singing unseen in the trees, roosting and calling for sleep.

“The barn was out there to the right,” Loki said.

“Yeah,” Thor said softly. “I thought about looking through historical records to see if I could find out whether or not one ever existed there. But then I thought about the bunk beds in the basement and the path worn in the floor by the horse… I don’t think any of that stuff was ever out there, apart from you.”

Loki turned and Thor could see the man’s eyes taking stock of reality, holding it up against the remembered dreams.

“Does your bedroom here have windows-” Loki paused and shut his eyes, “on the south and west walls, and a bathroom on the east?”

“It does.”

They sat down to dessert, crunching toasted coconut between their teeth while cream coated their tongues. Thor thought of bare toes sliding up his thighs.

“Have your dreams ever told you anything like this before?” Thor asked.

Loki shook his head. His eyes were wide, but his gaze seemed absent. Inward, Thor soon realized.

“They’re usually made up of useless aggravations,” Loki admitted. “Tests I forgot about and didn’t study for. Papers I didn’t write. Ideas I don’t have. Punches I can’t throw because my arms are like noodles. Killers I can’t run away from because my legs won’t move fast enough…” Loki shook his head. “You?”

“No. The only other dreams I can even remember are nightmares about my father from high school and college.”

“I haven’t had a dream I can remember in weeks,” Loki said, and forked the last bite of pie off his plate.

“Same here.”

Thor cleared away their dishes and poured them drinks. The sour, fizzy raspberry taste was bright on their tongues and perked up their minds after a few sips.

“So, who the hell are you?” Loki smiled, and they talked about jobs, families, travel, and friends. When they had emptied the bottle, Thor got up to set their glasses by the sink. Loki went off to use the bathroom without having to be told where it was.

Thor couldn’t read him. He was friendly and open, but not flirtatious. Funny and polite, but not entirely relaxed. It seemed likely that his presence in Thor’s house was due solely to his curiosity about the dreams. Whether the pleasure of the most recent dreams had been experienced as intensely on Loki’s end, Thor didn’t know, and he was afraid to make Loki even more uncomfortable by asking.

Thor brought ice water to the living room for them to drink and then sat on the sofa, wondering what to say next. Wondering how and why and whether they’d ever know. Whether other people in the world had lived through anything similar and what they’d done about it.

Loki took the chair across from Thor instead of sitting on the sofa beside him. Thor told himself it made sense. They were strangers. They’d only spent an hour in each other’s company. It would be an odd thing, to sit so close--like someone taking the seat beside you in an otherwise empty theater.

Still, it stung.

Loki sat hunched over with his elbows on his knees, looking down into his drink. He was swirling it carefully, making the water rise up almost to the edge of the glass while it simultaneously sank in the center.

“I’ve never seen you hurt me in my dreams,” Loki said quietly. “Have you ever done anything like I did in the…”

“The bunk beds?” Thor finished gently, and Loki nodded. “No, not like that. But I’m pretty sure I put you in that barn somehow… and in that basement.”

“I don’t know why I’m talking like this,” Loki laughed, shaking his head. “Sorry. They’re not us, and we’re not them. They’re only dreams and we’ve done nothing. ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe.’”

“I know,” Thor groaned, and held his glass against his temple to let the sweat from the ice water cool his face. “It’s just disorienting. They were always so vivid, and now, having you here, knowing that you’re real and that you’ve seen what I’ve seen…”

“All the lines feel blurred,” Loki said. “Past and present. Life and death. Dreams and waking. Possible and impossible. Self and other.”

“Exactly,” Thor laughed, letting out an unsteady breath. “I thought I finally had my dreams all figured out, and now…”

“What was your theory?” Loki asked, looking Thor in the eye intently.

Thor laughed and shook his head at himself.

“I thought it was just my brain’s way of telling me I like men.”

“Oh,” Loki nodded. “And was it right?”

“Yes, but…”

“But?” Loki prodded.

“But you’re here. And it was always you, over and over. I mean, how the hell did I know what you would look like now back when I was five?”

They both sat, staring at the floor, breathing too hard for how little they’d been moving.

“Maybe your mind is just very precise,” Loki offered. His gaze was fixed high on Thor’s chest now, as if he still wanted eye contact, but not at the cost of having to return it.

“How so?” Thor asked, and Loki parted his lips and sealed them again twice before speaking.

“Maybe it didn’t just tell you that you like men,” Loki said slowly. “Maybe it told you…”

“Which man I like,” Thor finished.

Loki said nothing, just kept staring at Thor’s breast.

“What were your dreams telling you?” Thor asked.

Loki blinked rapidly and then leaned back in his chair with a sigh.  

“I think they were telling me to wait,” Loki began. “Or maybe to trust or to hope. In any case I didn’t listen. When they started up again this spring I thought they were showing me that I’d ruined everything by being impatient. That I was lost and dead inside. And then that I needed a fresh start. But with the last two and now with meeting you...”

Loki’s lips were almost colorless and his shoulders had slumped.

“Hey, are you okay?” Thor asked.

Loki shook his head no very faintly. Thor got up and took the glass from Loki’s hand and set it on a side table.

“You look pretty shaky. You need something to eat?”

“Fuck,” Loki winced. “Sorry. Yes. I skipped dinner, apart from the pie. If you’ve got anything with protein in it...”

“Here,” Thor said, and pushed the coffee table out of the way. “So you don’t have too far to fall.”

He helped Loki sit down on the floor, then hurried to the kitchen and came back with a bowl of almonds.

“Here’s this for now,” Thor said, offering the nuts. “And can I make you bacon and eggs?”

“That would be heaven.”

Loki chomped his way through the almonds and then walked carefully to the kitchen table and took a seat while Thor was cooking.

Thor remembered the southern tradition of dropping off a casserole with one token spoonful scooped out of it and a note that claimed “We couldn’t finish it.” The practice was meant to keep the recipient of the dish from feeling like an inconvenience. Thor made enough food for both of them in order to spare Loki the awkwardness of eating alone in a stranger’s house.

“I wish there were someone we could ask about all this,” Loki sighed, between bites of crispy bacon.

“God, I know,” Thor laughed. “Everything I’ve read has been ridiculous. A cigar is just a cigar, except when it’s a dick you want to suck, and only you can determine the meaning of your dreams. It’s like if your math teacher said, ‘Class, you’ll have a much better understanding of calculus if you invent it yourselves, so I’ll leave you to it,’ and then tap danced out of the room.”

Loki laughed fast, in his belly and his nose. A smothered giggle. Color came back to his face and his posture relaxed slightly. When he met Thor’s eyes again he was smiling.

“I don’t think the impossibility of it bothers me half as much as the feeling that my life is moving along a track,” Loki admitted. “Like it isn’t really mine, or isn’t my idea.”

“Yeah, things aren’t looking great for free will right now,” Thor agreed, with a smile that twisted off to one side in sympathy and consolation. “And I’ve always hated being told what to do.”

“Same,” Loki nodded.

“This evening has all been new, though,” Thor said, looking to Loki to see if the same held true for him. “It’s just he faces that are familiar.”

“Yes,” Loki smiled. “I had no idea you’d be making my woozy ass breakfast for dinner at nine o’clock tonight.”

They cleaned their plates and then admitted they both had to work in the morning. Thor walked Loki to his car. The chilly night air gave them a jolt of energy after the heat of the kitchen and the lethargy that always followed on the heels of a heavy meal.

“Thanks again for everything,” Thor said. “For the car keys and drinks and for humoring me about all this. I know it’s unnerving.”

“My pleasure. Thank you for dessert and dinner and for not running away screaming the second you saw me.”

“Ditto,” Thor smiled, and they waved their goodbyes as Loki backed down the driveway.

Thor went inside with no last name, no personal phone number, and no idea if Loki ever wanted to speak to him again.

He did the dishes with the volume on his cell turned all the way up so that if a call or message came while the water was running, he’d still be able to hear it. After that, he made himself run six miles so that his nervous waiting could be overlaid on something useful. No word came. When he checked after his shower there were no missed calls or texts. More nothing came while he shaved.

He lied awake with his phone on the bed beside him, hoping to hear it beep, but after two fruitless hours he drifted off into dreamless sleep.

When Thor’s shift was over the next day, he still hadn’t heard from Loki. On his way home he stopped at the bakery again and picked up crème brûlée, because if he was going to eat his feelings, he was going to do it properly.

A week passed largely in this pattern, with the only variation being in the ever-increasing distances Thor ran to make up for all the desserts. When it hit fifteen miles, he decided he was cut off. The next night he stopped at the grocery store and moped his way through the produce department, buying vegetables for his penance.

He was in his kitchen watching a dish of broccoli spin in the microwave when his phone finally beeped. It was Friday, so he was expecting Fandral.

Hi, it’s Loki. I don’t even know if you want to hear from me, so I apologize if this is unwelcome. There’s a sushi place I’ve been wanting to try at the corner of Fourth and Lincoln. Would you want to meet there at 7:30?

Hello. It’s not unwelcome. Sushi at 7:30 sounds great. I haven’t been there yet either.

Thor stopped his broccoli, ran it under cold water, and stuffed it in the fridge, then scrambled upstairs to get ready. Grey wool trousers. White button up. Deep blue v-neck sweater, and garnet tie.

He got a table and texted Loki to tell him where it was, then rose from his seat to say hello and shake hands when Loki arrived.

“There isn’t a roll on the menu that I don’t want to try--apart from the natto,” Thor said. “Do you want to order different things and share them so we can try more?”

“Good call,” Loki nodded, and they went down the slim sheet of paper, ticking off their order.

The music in the restaurant was low and unobtrusive, and the walls between the booths were high enough to completely block one’s neighbors. Thor was grateful in each case.

“Sorry about this being totally inappropriate,” Loki said. “I only have your number because of work and I felt really weird copying it.”

“No, it’s okay. I wanted you to call me, and I wanted to call you too, but I only had your work number and I didn’t want to risk someone else answering and thinking you were using it for personal calls or something. Plus I wasn’t sure you were comfortable with me.”

“You definitely took the whole thing better than I did,” Loki laughed. “It wasn’t you I was nervous about, just the circumstances. So I thought maybe we could give ourselves a change of scenery.”

Thor nodded and smiled. They talked about how their weeks had gone until their food came, at which point their conversation descended into moans and munching.

“I’ve got a bottle of Hibiki at home if you’re up for a drink,” Loki said, after Thor nabbed the check.

“Nice,” Thor purred. “Yeah. Love to.”

Thor followed Loki to a very old house on a block all by itself. The huge lot was walled by a hedge eight feet high that only broke for the driveway.

Thor’s house looked almost comically Swedish. Lots of light wood, white walls, grey upholstery, and pops of red. Loki’s home felt French. High windows and ceilings. Intricate details on the trim and the furniture. Parquet floors. Pale aqua walls. Windows dressed to the nines.

“This is gorgeous,” Thor marvelled, as Loki turned on the lights.

“Can’t really take credit, but thank you nonetheless. My grandmother’s doing.”

Loki poured their drinks at a pretty glass bar cart and then took Thor on the tour. One room was full of work tables that were covered with antique locks and doorknobs in various stages of restoration. Loki said it was a relaxing way to make money on the side. Loki’s bedroom was immaculate but Thor could still tell it was his by scent without being told. Double doors opened onto a half-round balcony that formed the roof of the back porch. Thor and Loki went out to let the cool night air soothe the heat that the whisky was bringing to their cheeks. A series of descending rectangular fountains poured one into the next on the lawn below and disappeared into the darkness beyond the light from the house.

“This is incredible,” Thor said. “I’ve lived in this city my whole life and I never knew this was here.”

“Not many people know about it. The street loops back around the block at the end. There’s a park south and west of here with no road through it. We don’t get much traffic.”

“Perfect.”

“It is,” Loki agreed, smiling. “I was always disappointed that I never got to see you here in my dreams. Is any of it familiar to you?”

“No,” Thor said, shaking his head. “When I was little, all my dreams were in my room. Lately, they’ve been in fake places or at my house.”

“You said you knew what I’d look like now when you were five. I take it I was grown up.”

“Yeah,” Thor nodded. “I was my own age, and you were always around thirty.”

“It was the same for me,” Loki said. “I was my age, and you were as you are now, though a bit idealized. We’ve been the right age--and realistic--in the recent ones though.”

“Was I petting you and drawing circles on you and sticking my finger in your navel? Or were you doing that to me?” Thor asked, fiddling with his hair and looking at his feet.

“You were doing it to me,” Loki laughed. “Was I doing that to you in your dreams?”

“No, I was still doing it to you.”

Loki made a quiet sound of surprise and tipped back the last of his whisky. He set his empty glass on the small round breakfast table that stood at the center of the balcony.

“What is it?” Thor asked.

“Can I get you another drink?”

“Hmm? Oh, no thank you,” Thor replied, and Loki took Thor’s glass and set it aside with its mate. “But what was that noise you made about?”

“It’s just,” Loki began, and spread his hands in confusion as he reached for the words. “You had dreams like that at five and you didn’t know you liked men?”

“Hindsight is twenty/twenty,” Thor huffed, then turned to look at the park that was west of him, though it was hidden by night and trees.

“Sorry,” Loki said gently. “I don’t mean to tease you. I just really don’t understand.”

“I’m not sure I understand it either,” Thor admitted, shrugging his left shoulder. “It never carried over into waking life until recently.”

“Did you meet someone?”

“It was just one dance--and then making out for a minute. But every second of it was perfect.”

“Ah, twenty-four karat gold,” Loki nodded. “Will never tarnish.”

“Exactly,” Thor agreed.  

“But it doesn’t hold up over a long haul,” Loki noted. “That’s why wedding bands are fourteen or eighteen karat. You have to throw some shit in there with the gold to give it backbone.”

Thor’s laughter echoed off the walls of the house and out over the fountains.

“I think you and my mom would appreciate each other,” Thor said. “You should go out for coffee. Except you’d probably run away together and I’d never see you again.”

“We’d send postcards,” Loki soothed, and Thor nudged him with his elbow; Loki nudged Thor in return with his shoulder. “Did she teach you how to intelligently peel a banana?”

“Yep.”

“I didn’t know about that trick until you showed me in the dream. Tried it out the next morning. Worked like a charm. I can’t believe I spent a quarter of a century doing it backward. I should have taught you how to pick locks or something in return.”

“You taught me plenty,” Thor said, and Loki cackled. “No! I didn’t mean-” Thor groaned and ran his hands down his face. “I meant about myself.”

“I know, I’m teasing you again, sorry,” Loki sighed and wrapped his arm low around Thor’s back. “I can’t seem to help myself. I’m being stupid about it. If I were smart I’d tease you inside under the lights so I could see you blush.”

Thor shook his head in mock disapproval while the rest of him shook with laughter.

"Do you blush?” Loki asked, knocking the sides of their hips together as he tickled Thor’s waist.

“I do,” Thor sighed.

“And may I ask under what circumstances?”

“It’s usually when my mom teases me about what I was like as a boy. And then she tells me that I’m blushing, which always makes it worse, which she also mentions.”

“I like her,” Loki said, giggling and rubbing Thor’s flank, then trailing his hand across the base of Thor’s back as he turned to stand in front of him.

Thor could smell the lilacs and magnolias that were blooming unseen in the yard. The damp earth and waking green. And whisky, now that it wasn’t lost to the familiarity of his own mouth. The slowly unfolding scent of the spirit drifted up from Loki’s skin as they leaned close to kiss. Lychee, rose, sandalwood, and herbs overlaid on oak and honey, with something else below them that had been there long before the drink. Something slightly sour and savory, but smooth and welcoming. Thor felt the scrape of stubble and the weight of arms around his waist. Felt the ears that were as chilly as the night air at their tops while their lobes were warm between his lips.

“You’re getting cold,” Thor whispered.

Loki took Thor’s hand and led him back inside where they kicked their shoes off onto the parquet and sat at the foot of the bed. Their kisses couldn’t get close enough as they sat side by side. Soon Loki was straddling Thor’s lap to let their bodies fit together, warm and flush, from breasts to hips. Their arms still squeezed, though there was no ground left to be gained. Their mouths opened their widest again and again. Loki tipped Thor onto his back and gripped him under the armpits, urging him up the bed until Thor crab-walked backward and dropped down against the pillows. He leaned up to let Loki pull off his sweater and then he watched as Loki’s fingers glided through the knot of his tie and flowed down his front, undoing his buttons from top to bottom.

“There really isn’t a mark on you,” Loki breathed, running his hands over Thor’s skin, searching in vain for a freckle, scar, or blemish.

“Do you have moles here and here?” Thor asked, touching two spots on Loki’s left side, one at the base of his pectoral, about an inch in from his nipple, and another where the top of his flank dipped in at the abdominals.

Loki unbuttoned his shirt and Thor found the freckles waiting for him, both slightly raised, like braille. He wondered whether they were the letter A twice, or the letter K once. For some reason, K seemed more likely to him.

Loki climbed off to stretch out on his back beside Thor and started opening his own jeans. Thor followed suit and they both sighed and went still for moment, relieved to be free of the tight fronts of trousers.

They looked down at the dark spots blooming on the fronts of each other’s boxers and laughed when their cocks seemed to nod their heads in greeting. Thor rolled over to kiss Loki again. He felt the slow weight of his body that was never quite captured by his dreams. The faint stickiness of skin that was unlike anything else.

The puffs of oak and honey came faster now from Loki’s lips, and paused sometimes as Thor’s hand slowly brushed his body. Thor felt the muscles in Loki’s stomach flexing as his fingers neared the base. Felt the hips growing impatient as he stroked the insides of the thighs; the pelvis rising up above the begging spread of legs. He felt heat pouring through thin cotton as he carefully brushed Loki’s balls. Felt the moan against his mouth as he rubbed the ridge of Loki’s cock.

Their kisses grew clumsy when Loki nodded his head. He helpfully lifted his hips as Thor hooked a finger under his waistband and dragged his shorts down to his knees.

Thor saw the shiny wet thread that had stretched and broken, draped across Loki’s cock. He smelled clean sweat and musk beside the bright ghost of soap. Saw a heartbeat and satiny skin when he bent to lick the strand of precum away. Loki’s cock reared up against his tongue and Thor hummed, licked it again, and dipped his head to glide the whole thing into his mouth. Loki made a sound between a moan and a shiver.

Thor did all the things he liked himself. After a few minutes he figured out that Loki preferred it when tight lips and a swirling tongue went all the way from base to tip while a hand filled the gap with a firm, twisting stroke.

“I’m close,” Loki warned, and Thor hummed and nodded gently, still smoothly rising and falling.

When Loki lifted his hips Thor went still. He felt Loki’s cock swell and flex in his mouth as a familiar taste bloomed on his tongue. Loki’s breast heaved in fading waves as his breathing evened out. Thor smiled up the sleepy eyes that had never once stopped watching him.

“What would you like?” Loki panted.  

“Can I come on your cock?” Thor asked, and Loki nodded and watched as Thor tugged his boxers down his thighs and crouched above him.

“You’re just going to let me lie here?” Loki asked, lifting his eyebrows and smiling warmly.

“If that’s all right with you,” Thor said.

Loki nodded. His right hand covered Thor’s left hand where it was resting on the mattress.

They both dropped their eyes to watch the crown of Thor’s cock grow red in his fist. When Thor was close, he pushed the head lower and drove his hips down to paint Loki’s skin with come.

Loki cleaned himself up with his boxers and then arched his back and yawned.

“Let’s get under the covers,” Loki sighed, and they both got up to turn off the lights and turn down the bed.

Loki climbed in first and stretched out on his back.

"Come here," Loki murmured, and raised his right arm.

Thor smiled at the invitation. He tucked himself into Loki’s side, pillowed his head on the offered shoulder, and fell asleep with the sound of his friend's heartbeat in his ear.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> please don't comment or repost.


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